Roe V. Wade and Beyond

Within our Zine Roe v. Wade and Beyond, our group has examined the implications of the overturning of Roe v. Wade and how this affects different groups. This zine explores the history of this landmark Supreme Court case, and helps readers understand what the effects of this decision are. In addition to looking at the politics that are associated with this debate and this decision, the Zine also investigates different problems associated with obtaining an abortion such as education and skin color. The Zine seeks to educate readers about how abortion affects a variety of women, as well as help others decide how they can get involved if they are passionate about reproductive justice. Through the creative design and useful information provided in our project, we hope that this will provide readers with useful information pertaining to abortion, Roe v. Wade, and more.https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/spring_2023/1008/thumbnail.jp

Geminin regulates the transcriptional and epigenetic status of neuronal fate-promoting genes during mammalian neurogenesis

Regulating the transition from lineage-restricted progenitors to terminally differentiated cells is a central aspect of nervous system development. Here, we investigated the role of the nucleoprotein geminin in regulating neurogenesis at a mechanistic level during both Xenopus primary neurogenesis and mammalian neuronal differentiation in vitro. The latter work utilized neural cells derived from embryonic stem and embryonal carcinoma cells in vitro and neural stem cells from mouse forebrain. In all of these contexts, geminin antagonized the ability of neural basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) transcription factors to activate transcriptional programs promoting neurogenesis. Furthermore, geminin promoted a bivalent chromatin state, characterized by the presence of both activating and repressive histone modifications, at genes encoding transcription factors that promote neurogenesis. This epigenetic state restrains the expression of genes that regulate commitment of undifferentiated stem and neuronal precursor cells to neuronal lineages. However, maintaining geminin at high levels was not sufficient to prevent terminal neuronal differentiation. Therefore, these data support a model whereby geminin promotes the neuronal precursor cell state by modulating both the epigenetic status and expression of genes encoding neurogenesis-promoting factors. Additional developmental signals acting in these cells can then control their transition toward terminal neuronal or glial differentiation during mammalian neurogenesis

A multimodal cell census and atlas of the mammalian primary motor cortex

ABSTRACT We report the generation of a multimodal cell census and atlas of the mammalian primary motor cortex (MOp or M1) as the initial product of the BRAIN Initiative Cell Census Network (BICCN). This was achieved by coordinated large-scale analyses of single-cell transcriptomes, chromatin accessibility, DNA methylomes, spatially resolved single-cell transcriptomes, morphological and electrophysiological properties, and cellular resolution input-output mapping, integrated through cross-modal computational analysis. Together, our results advance the collective knowledge and understanding of brain cell type organization: First, our study reveals a unified molecular genetic landscape of cortical cell types that congruently integrates their transcriptome, open chromatin and DNA methylation maps. Second, cross-species analysis achieves a unified taxonomy of transcriptomic types and their hierarchical organization that are conserved from mouse to marmoset and human. Third, cross-modal analysis provides compelling evidence for the epigenomic, transcriptomic, and gene regulatory basis of neuronal phenotypes such as their physiological and anatomical properties, demonstrating the biological validity and genomic underpinning of neuron types and subtypes. Fourth, in situ single-cell transcriptomics provides a spatially-resolved cell type atlas of the motor cortex. Fifth, integrated transcriptomic, epigenomic and anatomical analyses reveal the correspondence between neural circuits and transcriptomic cell types. We further present an extensive genetic toolset for targeting and fate mapping glutamatergic projection neuron types toward linking their developmental trajectory to their circuit function. Together, our results establish a unified and mechanistic framework of neuronal cell type organization that integrates multi-layered molecular genetic and spatial information with multi-faceted phenotypic properties

Tractably Adaptable Food Manipulation for Robot-Assisted Feeding

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2023Assistive robots can empower those with mobility impairments, engendering feelings of independence. However, to reach the point of actual in-home use, they must manage the trade-off between adaptability, tractability, and comfort. On one hand is the non-stationary distribution of the environment and user preferences; a robot may need to explore to find the best action to take. On the other hand, excessive exploration can make for an uncomfortable experience of failures and unpredictable motion. This is particularly salient for intimate tasks like feeding. Here we focus on the particular problem of food acquisition, with metrics, system design, and assumptions informed by studies with people with upper spinal cord injuries. The problem can be mapped into the well-studied contextual bandit framework to enable online adaptation with theoretical guarantees on performance, though these scale with the size of both the context space and the action space. Both can be large: set by the variety of food users want. We show how we can leverage haptic information and human expertise to shrink both of these spaces, making this online adaptation tractable. Finally, we describe a complete, portable system that can be used for an extended in-home deployment

A Dataset of Bite Acquisition Attempts on Solid Food Using Different Manipulation Strategies

A dataset of attempts by the Autonomous Dextrous Arm (ADA), a JACO 2 arm equipped with an eye-in-hand camera and a force-torque sensor, to skewer one of 16-types of food given one of 6 manipulation strategies (3 pitch angles X 2 roll angles). Each attempt contains RGB and Depth images, camera distortion parameters, and text describing the attempt as a "fail" or "success"

X-ray Spectroscopic Study of the Electronic Structure of a Trigonal High-Spin Fe(IV)═O Complex Modeling Non-Heme Enzyme Intermediates and Their Reactivity.

Fe K-edge X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) has long been used for the study of high-valent iron intermediates in biological and artificial catalysts. 4p-mixing into the 3d orbitals complicates the pre-edge analysis but when correctly understood via 1s2p resonant inelastic X-ray scattering and Fe L-edge XAS, it enables deeper insight into the geometric structure and correlates with the electronic structure and reactivity. This study shows that in addition to the 4p-mixing into the 3dz2 orbital due to the short iron-oxo bond, the loss of inversion in the equatorial plane leads to 4p mixing into the 3dx2-y2,xy, providing structural insight and allowing the distinction of 6- vs 5-coordinate active sites as shown through application to the Fe(IV)═O intermediate of taurine dioxygenase. Combined with O K-edge XAS, this study gives an unprecedented experimental insight into the electronic structure of Fe(IV)═O active sites and their selectivity for reactivity enabled by the π-pathway involving the 3dxz/yz orbitals. Finally, the large effect of spin polarization is experimentally assigned in the pre-edge (i.e., the α/β splitting) and found to be better modeled by multiplet simulations rather than by commonly used time-dependent density functional theory

Creative Works Symposium Concert

https://dc.ewu.edu/music_performances/1712/thumbnail.jp